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Posted by admin on August 7, 2015

by Michael Stearns

It’s hard to believe how far we’ve come. Ten years ago, the Mid Klamath Watershed Council (MKWC) moved from a dilapidated Forest Service trailer with holes in the floor to an old grocery store in downtown Orleans. With only a few staff members, we suddenly had almost 5,000 square feet of interior space, including tons of old grocery junk, a rusted hulk of a house trailer and an ancient, chronically leaking generator contaminating our soils.

Excitement about the possibilities was contagious (and terrifying) and many people lent a hand to clean up the old messes and begin a new era for the Panamnik Building. Humboldt County’s Headwaters Fund and the Humboldt Area Foundation were very supportive of our efforts. MKWC was eventually able to purchase the building in 2010. It could never have happened without the support of our local community members who attended countless fundraising events, and continue to do so.

MKWC immediately began to make all the extra space available to the local community. With an emphasis on positive events open to everyone, we continue building up community programs. The Panamnik Building is regularly used for everything from yoga, exercise and Kung Fu classes to natural resource and wildfire meetings as well as preschool playgroups.

After cleaning up the messes inside and outside the building, with the help of the Somes Bar Arts Council, MKWC began to develop its property behind the Panamnik Building along the Klamath River. Our outdoor amphitheater area project and a safe kid friendly area to gather are in progress. Construction of an outdoor stage and a fabric band shell will complete the amphitheater project.

By providing a place for community events along the Klamath, MKWC hopes to provide a spark of revitalization in Orleans. MKWC has tried to clean up from past land uses and is endeavoring to set an example for responsible land use and increasing community vitality. As an organization we have much to contribute and high hopes for the future, but as the saying goes, it takes a village.

In my opinion, change begins with each individual. Only through personal accountability and being a good citizen, can positive change happen for the entire community. Like John Muir said, “Everything is hitched together”.

As the Panamnik Building moves into the future, MKWC plans to continue developing partnerships with other organizations and the community at large. We plan to use the development of the Panamnik Building as a testing ground for creative community uses and ideas. We all have dreams of rainwater catchment and solar panels, but also more grounded goals of a new roof and insulation. Our building survived the 1964 flood, but is now in need of some serious upgrades. How we plan, dream and scheme to make positive changes for our community building program is largely a matter of how high our hopes are and the will to make it happen.

MKWC is hosting the monthly Third Thursday café August 20 at 6 p.m. as a fundraiser for the Panamnik Building Project. The menu features grilled tri-tip steak, stuffed peppers (ground tofu and veggies), summer pasta with pesto and zucchini, and cucumber gazpacho. Non-alcoholic blackberry sangria and blackberry sangria with vodka, as well as beer and wine options, will be available at the bar. There will also be a dessert auction.

Events like this one are possible because so many kind local people show up and pitch in. Please come share in our dreams, schemes and plans!

As MKWC's Panamnik Building Director, Michael Stearns oversees building operations, improvements, and the greater campaign to convert an old grocery store into a thriving community center and a model for green living and working in the heart of downtown Orleans.

Posted by admin on July 26, 2015

Rafting, Kayaking, Backpacking: A week at the Klamath-Siskiyou Outdoor School

by Carol Earnest

By the morning of June 22, all of the names on applications, the Excel spreadsheets, the meetings, the Costco receipts, were finally coming to life as twenty youth arrived at Dillon Creek Campground, wide-eyed and weighed down with gear. It was time for the annual Klamath-Siskiyou Outdoor School (KSOS, pronounced K-sauce) – a highly anticipated Mid Klamath Watershed Council (MKWC) program.

The Klamath-Siskiyou Outdoor School is a cost free overnight camp for youth in the Mid Klamath area. The camp involves local youth, ages 11-14, in hands-on natural resource restoration and monitoring activities during rafting and backpacking trips. Students learn about the natural history and ecology of the Klamath area from camp counselors and special presenters. In addition, students participate in outdoor recreational activities such as kayaking and stand-up paddle boarding. Junior counselors, who were campers in previous years, are given the opportunity to improve and practice their leadership skills. KSOS aims to inspire the next generation of environmental stewards, while providing a platform for building self-confidence and strong relationships.

I looked to my right and saw one of our junior counselors already loading backpacks into the pick-up truck. At least someone knew what they were doing and was taking charge. Just kidding, but as my first year leading KSOS, I would be lying if I said I was completely calm, cool, and collected that Monday morning. But my worries quickly disappeared, as campers started mingling and discussing which interesting fact belonged to each person, an activity that is sure to break the ice with quirky facts like, “I can make my nose honk like a bicycle horn” and “I have a pet mole”.

Our Monday then took a turn for the spectacular as we started our raft trip down the Klamath River with the squirt-gun toting guides of the Klamath River Outfitters. From Persido River Access to Stuarts Bar, the campers observed bald eagles soaring, Western pond turtles sunning themselves on rocks, ospreys gazing out from their riverside nests, river otters frolicking, Roosevelt elk grazing on the grassy cliffs above, and a multitude of other beautiful wildlife along the way. Our rafting trip ended with a juvenile fish passage project at Rogers Creek, led by Karuk Tribal Fisheries Biologist Toz Soto. Campers learned about fish passage problems during times of low flow, and moved rocks to increase flow and deepen pools that will ease the passage of juvenile fish to cold water holding areas during the hot weeks to come.

Before you could say, “Where’s the aloe vera?”, it was Tuesday and we were staying at the Forks Community Club along the Salmon River. Tuesday brought a whole new set of exciting activities, including stand-up paddle boarding on the Salmon River, kayaking at the Otter Bar Kayak School, and a Wing Chun martial arts class with Salmon River resident and fisheries surveyor, Matt Cavin.

Wednesday we began a new stage of our journey, making our way up the south fork of the Salmon River to Carter Meadows. We were met by the Salmon River Restoration Council’s Melissa Van Soyoc who led the campers through an invasive weed identification and weed pulling activity. Additionally, the US Forest Service Fort Jones Fisheries Biologist Mia Menecks presented on lake amphibians we might find on our backpacking trip.

We then hoisted our packs onto our backs and started hiking up to Long Gulch Lake in the Trinity Alps Wilderness. After several hours of hiking in hot temperatures, we arrived at a deep, 10-acre lake backed by vertical granite cliffs. With ample time to swim and fish, educational activities including wilderness first aid, fire building, backcountry cooking, fire ecology, shelter building, and sensory awareness games, plus creative activities like watercolor painting, journaling, friendship bracelets, and decorating walking sticks, we easily filled our days.

Friday rolled around and it was time to hike out and say good-bye. We played one final round of “rose and thorn”, where the campers share with the group one awesome thing that happened (their rose), and one not so awesome thing that happened (their thorn). Many of them said that leaving Long Gulch Lake was their thorn for the day, and though I was looking forward to a stress-free weekend ahead, I had to agree.

Carol Earnest is MKWC’s Watershed Education Program Co-Director. She facilitates positive, educational experiences for young people of the Middle Klamath watershed, including field trips with local schools, KSOS, other restoration raft trips and hands on activities at events through MKWC and partner groups. She brings 3 years of experience working with youth, and a boundless, infectious enthusiasm for natural processes that occur in our ecosystems.

Posted by admin on June 22, 2015

by Heather Campbell (with photo of mama and baby by Anthony Two Feathers Colegrove)

It is wonderful to live in one of the most biologically diverse areas in the world. The Klamath Mountains are home to a multitude of flora, fauna, and wildlife. MKWC is now operating within the confines of the Mid Klamath Restoration Partnership (a network of people working towards resiliency from rivers to ridges) to search for the species Strix Occidentalis Caurina, otherwise known as the Northern Spotted Owl (NSO). The NSO calls the Pacific Northwest home, where it is considered a keystone species and is currently listed under the Endangered Species Act as ‘threatened.’ Loss of habitat over the past century, and, more recently, the invasion of the Barred Owl (Strix varia) from the East have led to a sharp decline in the population of this splendid raptor.

No Holds Barred

We are nearing the end of the yearly breeding season for the Spotted Owl and are mid season for survey efforts. To date, in the search area, MKWC has come across one Spotted Owl. While the outlook for the NSO appears bleak, the future of the Barred Owl seems very bright in comparison - at last count, Barred Owls numbered six. (If you're curious, here is what a Northern Spotted Owl call sounds like. NSOmale4note2.mp3)

Barred owls have the evolutionary advantage over the Spotted. They are larger, more easily adaptable to inferior habitat and are more aggressive. As such, they are able to out-compete the Spotted and are pushing them out of what little prime habitat still exists. In an effort to reverse this trend, the USFWS is experimenting in small designated areas with the use of force to remove Barred owls. This method is still in the testing phase and its success, or not, is yet to be determined. I have spoken with a colleague in the Wildlife field who helps manage one of the areas selected for testing, and have been told that they’ve had good results; that is, after removal of the Barred Owls, some areas were reinhabited by Northern Spotted Owls.

Recovery At What Cost?

This is great news for the NSO; however, I am a bit ambivalent. While I agree with protecting the NSO from extinction and regret that we as humans played a major role in the decline of the species, I also understand evolution and survival of the fittest, though it is hard to say with certainty if it is in fact evolution at work here. One could argue that the Barred owl might not have flourished here had it not been for human encroachment and habitat modification. On the other hand, evolution has been a catalyst of change since the beginning of time. If it is in fact destined that the stronger of the species prevail, maybe further interference with nature isn’t the best course of action. At the end of the day it is harming one species to save another.

Heather Campbell is MKWC's invaluable Administrative/Grants Coordinator, and she also serves as our Wildlife Director in her spare time. Among other things, this means she orchestrates and participates in owl surveys, spearheads research about how to create more habitat for endangered monarch butterflies in disturbed areas on our landscape, and helps to educate the public about Pacific fishers and efforts to recover them in our area.

The current way of life in the Klamath-Trinity Region rests on the assumption that there will always be an abundant supply of fresh water. We live in Northern California after all, the land of mountains and rivers, where the water originates that that is dammed and piped to the rest of the state. Meeting water needs has been pretty simple – you stick a pipe in a creek or spring, and you get all of the water you need, all year round, for your home and garden, and maybe power as well.

This situation, however, is changing. Now entering the fourth year of drought with zero snowpack, creeks and springs that were once reliable are now precipitously low, long before the dry summer months. California has experienced extended drought before, but never after 100 years of fire suppression, with a burgeoning, semi-legal marijuana industry, salmon on the brink of extinction, and a population of 32 million people using more water, spread across the landscape in fire’s path. California’s paleoclimate records show that the entire West has experienced megadroughts many times over the millennia, so we have no way of knowing how long this drought will last. While the past reveals that droughts can be long term and recurring; future climate models indicate we may now be entering a “new normal”, where increasing temperatures mean the loss of snowpack that feeds our creeks and rivers.

These changes demand a more nuanced approach to how we view and use water, but is our mindset changing as quickly as our hydrology and climate?

California’s weather is considered largely a result of conditions in the Pacific Ocean, which contains half the water on earth and covers a quarter of the globe. Two large-scale atmospheric patterns, the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) interact to determine the weather in the West. For a thorough description of these patterns (known as “teleconnections”) and how they affect our weather see Daniel Swain’s Weather West blog.

The present dry period is a result of a persistent, high-pressure, atmospheric ridge off the West Coast that has blocked moisture-bearing storms for the past four winters. Dubbed the “Ridiculously Resilient Ridge” by Swain, Atmospheric Scientist at Stanford University, this is the same pattern that forms in a normal summer, giving us months of blue skies and dry weather typical of a Mediterranean climate like the one where we live.

In most winters this system breaks up and the “storm door” opens, allowing moisture-bearing storms from the North and South Pacific to bring Fall and Winter rains to the West Coast. However, the high-pressure system has been particularly stubborn, and has persisted through many of the past several winters, as a result. Meteorologists see the formation of a strong El Niño as the best chance of breaking up the persistent high-pressure ridge and restoring more consistent rain to California.

Tree ring-sediment studies reveal recurring droughts in California’s climate history lasting from 10 to 200 years. 1987 – 1992 was the most recent dry spell, but before that an extended drought caused the Dust Bowl, one of the most dramatic disasters of the century. In the Middle Ages there were two droughts lasting over 200 years each.

The century starting in the late 1800s was one of the wetter periods in the West’s paleoclimate record. This also happens to have been the time when the massive water infrastructure of the West was made; dams were built, reservoirs filled, pipes and aqueduct laid, and far more water was promised than now exists.

Thus the climate that shaped early European settlement and mindset may well have been uncharacteristically moist, and it’s possible that we are now returning to dryer times.

But lack of rain is not the only factor in the current drought. In fact, rain gauges in the Mid Klamath are averaging about 80% of normal rainfall this year, so why are we still in a drought? A few important factors stand out: rainfall patterns have been erratic; we are experiencing the cumulative effect of several dry years in a row; and, most importantly, temperatures are increasing dramatically.Temperatures have been climbing the last few decades, and recent years have shattered records. The year 2014 was the hottest over recorded in California by a wide margin, and the first four-month period of 2015 was even hotter.

The heat is increasing evapotranspiration, drying out vegetation earlier, extending the fire season, and, most importantly, reducing snowpack to little or none. The pattern of rainfall has also been extremely erratic, falling in bursts punctuated by long, warm, dry spells. This season, most of precipitation came from warm pineapple express storms in November and December that left no snow on the mountains and flushed quickly through the watershed, followed by unusually warm and dry weather from January through April. With this year’s rainfall levels close to normal, but little snow, it will be interesting to note how this year plays out as it may well be a sign of things to come.

Cumulative effects play a large role in droughts, and 13 of the past 15 years have been below normal precipitation. It takes a lot of rainfall to replace moisture lost in soil and groundwater, which explains why it took so long for some ephemeral streams to start flowing when the rains came last year, and many gardeners found themselves irrigating their beds this February despite a wet Fall. Meteorologists look at three-year periods of data to determine drought status, and 30-year periods to determine climate. Data from the past three years puts us squarely within drought status. (As of May we are doing slightly better than the rest of the state, but that’s not saying much.) The USDA recently changed the climate zones for the entire country to reflect the change in temperatures across North America.

This same pattern of increasing temperatures and decreasing snowpack is reflected in global climate trends. Worldwide, 2014 was the hottest year on record, and the 10 hottest years on record have all occurred since 1998. The majority of the world’s freshwater is held in snow and glaciers, and snowpack is diminishing worldwide.

A report published in 2010 by the National Center for Conservation Science and Policy synthesizes the best climate models available and projects that within 70 years the Klamath snowpack will be virtually gone.

Mark Dupont is the Director of the Mid Klamath Watershed Council (MKWC) Foodsheds Program which works to ensure that people of the Middle Klamath have access to healthy, sustainable, locally produced foods. Mark and his partner Blythe also own and operate Sandy Bar Ranch in Orleans, which accommodates guests with riverside cabin rentals and a host of permaculture practices and educational opportunities on site.

Posted by admin on May 24, 2015

by Tanya Chapple

Did you know that the Orleans Iris or Ishi-Pishi Iris - Iris tenax klamathensis - is a rare plant? It is!

This special yellow blooming iris is only found here, nowhere else in California or Oregon, or the entire world. In fact it is commonly seen only on the west side of the Klamath River between Orleans and Somes Bar. In the past few weeks the sides of Ishi Pishi Road have been bejeweled by this iris. But the irises you see up the Salmon River, or toward Weitchpec or Happy Camp are different species.

Iris tenax ssp. klamathensis is an example of an endemic plant. Endemism is when an organism has a restricted range, found in only one region and not outside of that location. The Klamath Siskiyou biogregion is home to many endemic species because of its unique geography. And to me, the Orleans Iris is the flower shaped shining star that reminds me how special this place we live really is.

MKWC Plants Program Director Tanya Chapple got her formal botany training at UC Berkeley, and has spent nearly a decade since applying that training on the ground in the Klamath-Siskiyou bioregion, to the benefit of communities and ecosystems.